Never Alone in Every Season
• “Your time will come.”
• Your Time will Come: I say this phrase and my girls’ faces cringe.
They HATE when I say this because they don’t like to wait.
• Honestly, I don’t either. Waiting is uncomfortable.
• We live in a culture that resists waiting and demands immediate
fulfillment. (McDonalds has figured out that the average customer
is willing to wait 17 seconds after paying in the drive through…)
But life doesn’t move on demand; it moves in seasons.
Life has a way of moving through seasons…
• Sometimes you don’t even realize you’ve stepped into a new one
until you’re already there
Show Pics
Graduation: so much excitement… and honestly, a lot of uncertainty.
Marriage: new, exciting… but I didn’t realize how much I still had to
grow.
Little kids: constant noise, constant needs… just trying to make it
through the day. Talk about Never being Alone, In this season of life, I
couldn’t even go to the bathroom alone.
Teenagers: less physical exhaustion… more emotional weight.
Moving to Virginia: new place, new people… wondering if we made
the right decision.
Watching my daughter get married: so much joy… and a quiet kind
of grief.
college
Lots of
And now… stepping into an empty nest as our youngest graduates…
asking, ‘Who are we in this season?
WHICH I KNOW IS CRAZY SINCE I JUST GRADUATED HS!
Cover Slide : Never Alone
• Life is not one continuous experience-it shifts.
• Seasons of growth, waiting, pruning, silence, and breakthrough.
• Some seasons feel like progress… others feel like pause.
◦ There are even some where it feels like you’re going backward.
• But every season has a purpose…even when it feels unproductive.
Background:
Ecclesiastes:
• Written by King Solomon,
• most likely during the last years of his reign.
• Wise King was reflecting on the entire course of his life,
• Solomon teaches that people will not find meaning through knowledge, money,
pleasure, work or popularity, but that true satisfaction come from knowing that
everything temporal must be seen in the light of the eternal.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 4–8 NLT
V1 “For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.”
V4 “A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
V5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away
V6 A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
‘
V7 A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
V8 A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.”
Anyone else hear the Byrd’s Singing…. Play a clip from Turn
Turn Turn.
No, I’m not old enough to have been born when this song was
popular in 1962, Bit I Do love music.
Cover Slide
▪ God is Constant: Regardless of the season of life that you are
in, you are never alone.
The Psalmist Penned this in
Psalm 46:1: God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble
• In my opinion one of the most difficult seasons to trust God in is
the waiting season.
• Waiting for
• healing, for your time to come,
• for you to be recognized for your hard work, for a child,
• for God’s promise to come to fruition.
And that’s where find Leah and Rachel…
• Introduce Leah & Rachel. Sisters who were both longing and
waiting.
Genesis 29:28
Inall seasons
Background
• Jacob just schemed his way into stealing his brother’s blessing, he
is running away, cause his brother Esau isn’t happy and he meets,
his Uncle, Laban.
• Laban has 2 daughters, Leah and Rachel
• Jacob falls in love with Rachel
• Works 7 years to marry Rachel
• Laban gives Leah, his first born, to Jacob instead of Rachel
Rachel:
• Beautiful figure
• Lovely face
Leah:
• “No sparkle in her eyes”
• Not very pretty
• Jacob tricked into marrying Leah
• How doesn’t Jacob know that he married a completely different
woman?
• Perhaps…A lot of alcohol, a thick veil, and a dark room.
Genesis 29:28-30
” So Jacob agreed to work seven more years. A week after Jacob had
married Leah, Laban gave him Rachel, too. 29 (Laban gave Rachel a
servant, Bilhah, to be her maid.) 30 So Jacob slept with Rachel, too, and
he loved her much more than Leah. He then stayed and worked for
Laban for the additional seven years.”
• Jacob marries Rachel also
• Loves Rachel more than Leah
• Works additional 7 years
is after hm
feast-
>a lot of alcohol.
·
Finish the wedding week
1. God is present in your pain…
• Your pain does not disqualify you from His presence
• One God actively present in both stories
Leah’s Reality
• Unwanted
• Overlooked
• Compared
• Not as pretty
• Given without being chosen
• Not Jacob’s #1 pick
Genesis 29:31
” When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to have
children, but Rachel could not conceive”
• God saw she was unloved
• Enabled her to have children
• God sees Leah in her invisibility
Rachel’s Reality
• Deeply loved
• Barren for a long season
• Watching Leah have children
• Carrying longing
Genesis 30:22
“Then God remembered Rachel’s plight and answered her prayers by
enabling her to have children.”
• God remembered Rachel
▪ Remembered doesn’t mean at some point God forgot about Rachel
▪ In the Hebrew it means: to turn attention toward someone and act
on their behalf
▪ God moved toward her situation
▪ God activated His promise in her life
▪ God stepped into her story in a visible way by giving a child,
Joseph
• Where are you in this story?
– Rachel-unfulfilled longing, (Marriage, reconciled
relationship, Waiting on healing , feeling behind in
life.
-Leah, Producing, serving and succeeding, but not
feeling chosen, loved or noticed.
-Jacob- Caught between obligation and desire
People navigating blended or complicated families
• One felt overlooked.
• One felt delayed.
• One felt torn
• ALL were in seasons they didn’t choose.
• BUT GOD was working in All of their stories.
• Even in messy, delayed, or painful seasons, God is still writing
something significant.
Rachel and Leah both knew what it felt like to ache in
isolation — yet in every unseen moment, God was
present, seeing, remembering, and working.
• Picture of Ocean from St. Martin’s…
• On the surface
the water looks calm.
Still.
Quiet.
• But underneath
there’s a whole world in motion
Microscopic life you can’t see
Photosynthesis happening in silence
Bacteria breaking things down…recycling what looks like waste
Dead things, becoming new things
Fish swimming
Currents shifting
Oxygen flowing
Temperatures changing
Movement
Activity
Life
All beneath what looks like… nothing There is a whole lot of something
happening.
That’s a lot like our lives
Leeanne and Steve
World Travelers in
Retirerirent
God Is present and working in the unseen
• On the surface: Leah keeps having children.
• Rachel keeps waiting…and I know there are precious ladies in this
room who know exactly what that’s like
• It feels uneven and unfair
• But In fact:
◦ Leah is building the very family line that will shape Israel.
◦ Rachel eventually give birth to Joseph, a key part of God’s plan.
Leah & Rachel (Visual Family Tree)
Leah: Pain – Praise
Biological
Then click for each name to show up as I talk about them
• Reuben: “The Lord has noticed my misery”
• Simeon: “The Lord heard…”
• Levi: longing for love
• Judah: “Now I will praise the Lord”
with Rachel’s Servant:
• Dan: “God has vindicated me”
• Naphtali: “struggle with sister”
With Leah’s Servant
• Gad: “How fortunate I am”
• Asher: “What joy is mine”
Leah spent years searching for in Jacob what only
God had already given her.
God saw Leah — and she named her son Reuben.
God heard Leah — and she named her son
Simeon.
God showed His love and attachment to Leah —
and she named her son Levi.
Yet after every blessing, Leah’s response was still:
“Maybe now Jacob will see me. Maybe now he
will love me.”
Her identity was tied to gaining Jacob’s attention
and affection. Who are we wanting on to validate
what God has already declared valuable?
But when Judah was born, something shifted.
For the first time, Leah stopped striving for
Jacob’s approval and simply praised God.
Remember that moment — because it becomes
important later.
oeecedcccg ewee
cceccccl
Let’sTake a look ata ‘
STOP 4
버
zilpah
ป
Bilhah
Leah’s problem wasn’t
that God ignored 면 it was that she
her
built
,
her←
D Identity around someone
인 who did.
)
1 webuild our identity on
will determine whatcontrols
Your feace.
Leah Biologically:
• Issachar: “God has rewarded me”
• Zebulun “God has given me a good reward”
Rachel Biological
• Joseph: “God has removed my disgrace”
• Benjamin ” Son of Sorrow” (Rachel Dies bearing her second
Child)
Joseph’s story:
Joseph turns out to be Jacob’s Favorite
– Remember the rainbow coat?
• What others meant for evil -God used for good
• Brothers tried to kill him
• Sold him into slavery
• Falsely Accused of Rape
• Thrown in Jail
• And- God elevated him
• Became second in command to Pharaoh and supervised the
distribution of food during the famine.
…
Dinah-Daughter
–
>17 years Later
–
>At30 years Old
in Egypt
SLIDE: 3. God is present in the greater story
SLIDE: Click for “Joseph” to be Circled
• Ultimately about forgiveness
• His forgiveness: Saved his brothers from famine, which ultimately
became the 12 tribes of Israel.
Leah:
• “Weak eyes”
• The one who wasn’t the 1st pick….
• God made her a major part of His story.
Matthew 1:1-2
V1 “This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant
of David and of Abraham[a]:
V2 Abraham was the father of Isaac.
Isaac was the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.
V3. Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
God is writing a story larger than the moment we are
living in.
We want to Skip Genealogy –
>But it’s important!
• Judah is Leah’s Son!
• Judah- approx. 40 Generations later – lead us to the prophesied
Messiah.
Jesus, Lion of Judah. The
promised King from Judah’s line, powerful, victorious, and sovereign…
Through:
• The waiting
• Grace
• Forgiveness
• God was with Leah in her loneliness, God was with Rachel in her
longing and His bigger plan came to fruition
YOU ARE NEVER ALONE, BECAUSE GOD IS PRESENT!
EMMANUEL….GOD IS WITH US!
Ecclesiastes 3:11:
” Yet, God has made everything beautiful for it’s own time. He has
planted eternity in the human heart,
but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from
beginning to end.”
Written by Solomon, the King from the line of Judah.
• If You’re…
◦ Waiting….God hears you
◦ Hurting … God sees you
◦ In a good season …remember who carried you
◦ If you are in a difficult season …you are not alone
• Perhaps we simply need to call out to Him.
“Dad are you There?”
Matthew West’s Camp Story
• God has been there the whole time.
▪ Not distant.
▪ Not absent.
▪ Not unaware.
▪ God is closer than you think.
◦ He was always close to Leah
◦ Always close to Rachel
▪ Even Though your story is different or your season is different.
GOD IS WITH YOU…
He will never leave you
You can Ask Him anything
You should only listen to the sound of His voice.
Every season
I want to talk to two groups of people:
◦ If you feel as though you’ve been waiting on God for something
that really matters to you. And you just don’t know why He seems
to be delaying help that you desperately need. You’re in the first
group.
◦ If, right now, you are in a season of life where you feel invisible –
unseen, by God and others. As if no one cares, no one understands.
You’re in the second group.
◦ If you’re in either group (or both) would you honor God right now
by standing?
• If you need the reminder that God is with you in this season, I want
you to do something simple just place your hand over your heart.
• Feel that? Breath in your lungs. Life in your body.
• Let that be your reminder this week: HE IS RIGHT HERE (gesture
to your heart)